#dots dots dots

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

The widow venom being a thing the team needed to get is what makes the difference for me. Yeah they only had it in there because the writers wanted something to raise the stakes, but regardless the implication was that it was a bad job that somebody had to do, so it's only fair that someone who let two of their team members get captured for selfish (preventable) reasons should have to risk it.

On the other hand, the Misfortune's Keep fight was explicitly done to break Jay's will. Nadakhan's goal is to get him to use his final wish above anything else, and I highly doubt that we're supposed to side with that here. I agree with cboffshore in that it's a more of an 'oh shit' moment for him as things come crashing down due to his own actions, which I think is interesting to see happen, but I wouldn't call it 'deserved' in any sense.

Had Skybound on the mind for some reason (dont even like that season for how much i think about it frfr) but I got curious about something so I'm gonna poll it

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

I'm sure this has been said before but the visual storytelling in Happily Ever After is fantastic. The whole frame being shifted to the left (i.e. not right), the distance put between you and the Princess as all you engage in meaningless timefilling. Who she actually is comes secondary to you spending time with her.

The room being mostly white so the drawing looks more unfinished than usual. The tapestries of your apparent love that you can barely see against the light. It might be accidental but the shine on her eyes and the mascara on a small scale almost look like tears.

[knightofleo]

Animated scrap metal figures by Guillermo Galetti

[canonkiller]

I just think everyone should take a moment to consider the question "what is your visual shorthand for cruelty?" and then follow it up with a critical "and who taught you that?"

specific examples include but are not limited to

why is an evil timeline character design disabled? (why do the heroes go through equally punishing battles and never lose an arm, a leg, an eye?)

why are the futuristic scifi terrorists uniformly darker skinned? (why are the heroes so much lighter?)

why is the greedy boss fat? (why are the heroes skinny?)

why is the criminal mastermind heavily scarred? (why is the brooding, traumatized hero unscathed?)

why is the predatory creep a bearded person in a dress and makeup? (why are none of the heroes trans women?)

who taught you that this is how things are?

how long do you plan on repeating it?

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

I misread this as 'go into France'

tbh if someone just handed me a pressure washer and set me loose in the streets i would go into a trance and just start hosing shit down indiscriminately. it's not a question of how much i could clean, but how long until i get hit by a car and die

[raychleadele]

“Why did you follow this person ? uwu”

I’ve been here for fourteen years, do you think I remember? I don’t know who any of these people are anymore. I don’t know why they’re on my dash. I allow them to stay because they haven’t pissed me off enough to unfollow them yet. “Why did you follow this person?” I’m not sure I ever did. They’re just part of my ecosystem now.

[nb-hedgewolf]

why did you do it?

[Image description: art of Bill Cipher. He's floating in a dark void, illuminated by blue light from the bottom upwards, staring forward with his eye wide, and with his limbs hanging limp. Behind him is a white panel shattering into pieces, showing a red and a blue triangle holding hands. A smaller triangle between them has been punched out of the panel. On the very bottom of the canvas blue flames produce light and white squares simulating a "pixel glitch" effect, on the opposite end, there are white dots adorning the void, gradually disappearing downwards, simulating stars. End ID.]

original ID by @anistarrose thank you!

[lowkeiloki]

guys can you BELIEVE my professors rejected this illustration of litle sharks for my college project i am devastated

disabling reblogs for a short while bc theyre becoming a lot

[ren-is-real]

“JUST FIT IN”

This is based on the colour code that appears when you type in “just fit in” in “this is not a website dot com”

Read the pictures from the bottom up to the tune of “rockabye baby” to cry a little harder yayyy

Am I normal about this???? No??? Will I ever be normal about this ???? No??????

[freefallintothevoid]

Dick Grayson's unmatched success as a child vigilante makes a lot more sense when you remember the Court of Owls was a thing and that Dick was meant to be the next Grey Son.

There is no way that someone at Haly's Circus wasn't there keeping an eye on him while he grew up. A future weapon needs to be trained and monitored after all, and a circus, a place where weird skills are completely normal, is actually a great place to secretly train a child.

You know, just some knife tricks that translated really well into actual fighting. How to get out of restraints and pick locks while under a time limit. Death defying acrobatic stunts that coincidentally do wonders for parkouring. That sort of thing. Nothing that seems out of place for a boy growing up around circus performers to learn, but would literally any where else.

I mean, while I fully believe that most kids would want to kill the man responsible for their parents deaths, Dick was weirdly prepared to go through it. He tracked down Zucco with way more ease than any normal child should have too. He became the first child vigilante, for goodness sake. The first Robin! He only started getting formal training after he basically forced Bruce into it!

Bruce himself has no idea that this kind of competency in a child is unusual, considering he was much too blinded by the similarities between his and Dick's tragic orphanhoods.

Alfred is in a similar boat because he’s desensitized to weird children after he somehow managed to successfully raise Bruce 'The Batman' Wayne, so he doesn't clock the hyper-competency as abnormal either.

By the time the other batkids start popping up (Jason 'The Audacity' Todd, borderline-street rat with no fear) (Tim 'the greatest stalker in Gotham history' Drake, child genius, also bullied his way into becoming Robin) (Barbara 'raised by the only uncorrupt cop in gotham' Gordon) (Stephanie 'daddy issues and spite' Brown) (Duke 'Pretends he's the normal one and people believe him' Thomas) it's too late.

It would also explain how Dick got along so well with Damian out of all of them. Similar childhood with different approaches and all that. On some subconscious level, Dick recognises and resonates with the murderous ten year old assassin with strong familial ties to a secret elite assassin organization.

It isn't until after the whole Court of Owls and Grey Son reveal that suddenly Dick realises a whole lot of things about his childhood that suddenly make a lot more sense.

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

While I'm at it I also think Happily Ever After has some of the best writing of the game thus far. Like in every way.

Part of StP's writing style is that it's quite long-winded, which I think could be a critique for the pacing of certain routes. But one place where that works perfectly is a story about the torture of repetition, of going through things again and again, and trying to enjoy them as much as you did the first time, to try and make things work again. You see it coming from a mile away and it still gnaws at your heart.

And god, the Princess's dialogue:

A lot of the Pristine Cut routes have the Princess just up and apologise in horror of her actions at the end. I don't enjoy it much in routes where she's previously been filled with rage and self-righteousness like the Fury and Apotheosis, but after she's been the Damsel?

She's still trying to consider your side after all of this, and your desire to keep the world safe. After you force a being of change into the ending most contrary to her very nature. After you literally lose part of yourself to keep her as a prisoner and haunt her shadow. It's compassionate, but it's compassion you don't feel you deserve at this point in the route.

It's gut-wrenching, trying to watch these two diametrically-opposed beings try to change themselves for each other and only cause more pain in the process. It lends a lot more to the story being about love than any other aesthetics you can throw into a fight.

And the thing is, she's not wrong. Thematically, this is one of the only routes that tackles the game's meta-narrative about change and rebirth rather than just having that as an end. It's a route that jumps up and screams the 'YOU CAN'T HAVE GOOD THINGS WITHOUT CHANGE' message that the rest of the game implicitly nudges you towards and has one joke ending for.

Happily Ever After is all of the best parts of StP condensed into one amazing storyline. Also it's one of the few routes that really has the Princess as a princess and that's neat :)

[dotsz]

art takes so long and its so tiring but if i dont make art for the rest of my life ill die

[beebfreeb]

An Interview with Dot.

[hinamie]

trick or treat!

[nyaa]